


step up

by SmartKIN



Series: Ice Rink Verse [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Claudia Stilinski Feels, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 22:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4937842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmartKIN/pseuds/SmartKIN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles fell in love with Boyd when he was eight years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	step up

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr. I came up with this 'verse a little over a year ago and finally decided to polish it somewhat and post it here because there can never be enough Stoyd anywhere.
> 
> I hope you like it~

He remembered the exact moment when he developed his enormous hero-worshiping crush and, well, it was actually a bittersweet moment.

Seeing Boyd sit by himself in the cafeteria at school, all quiet and irreproachable—it did things to Stiles... remembering the first time he saw the boy.

It wasn’t an easy thing, having a crush on somebody you didn’t know how to interact with. Because Stiles was majorly out there, a whirlwind of emotions, never shutting up, never taking no for an answer. People were either annoyed by his constant chatter and movement—the way he seemed to vibrate with sheer energy every minute of every day—or they very emphatically ignored him. Which, _fiiine_. It wasn’t like he could help it, he had just never been good at sitting still.

Unlike Boyd. Who was really very good at it. And Boyd didn’t react to him like other people did. He wasn’t visibly annoyed by his mere existence, but he didn’t ignore Stiles in a way that screamed ‘shut the freaking hell up before I make you’ either.

And Stiles had no idea what to do with that, like, at all.

Boyd was like the embodiment of stoic non-reaction and Stiles was really, really nervous.

When he’d realized in Freshman year that they’d be going to the same high school for four glorious years, he’d nearly had a heart attack. Scott had had to lend him his inhaler, it had been that bad.

Stiles had recognized the other boy instantly (how could he not) but to this very day he wasn’t sure whether Boyd even knew who he was.

Because Stiles wasn’t able to talk to him. Not in a meaningful or even just a bro-like way. Scott thought it funny that a guy who literally never shut up was so chicken shit when it came to talking to the one person he really wanted to talk to. But Scott didn’t understand.

Boyd was important, Stiles couldn’t chance fucking this up.

So instead he just didn’t talk to Boyd at all.

But what he did do, admittedly, was act like a total creeper. He had literally spent his entire Freshman year staring at Boyd during history class—the only class they’d shared at the time.

Then came ‘ _that day of the year’_ , and when he’d gone to the ice rink by himself, like every year on her birthday, it had been a shock to discover that Boyd was working there.

For a brief moment, he had considered just abandoning this little tradition of his. But he’d prevailed and Boyd had noticed him in passing, which was awesome, because this year he’d been able to get the keys to the rink from Boyd (and look how awesome that had worked out for everybody, cough cough).

A lot had changed in the past couple of months. Werewolves and Kanimas... and Stiles wasn’t even sure if he was still allowed to have a crush on Boyd anymore, considering their divided allegiance.

And while he hadn’t skipped his once-a-year trip to the ice rink before, he thought long and hard about doing so now.

Because today was that day again. The one day a year he’d always made time for skating, _no matter what_. His dad just let him do it, no questions asked. The Sheriff certainly knew what he was up to, even though they had never actually talked about it.

In the end, Stiles still went. He just sucked it up and told himself that no supernatural turf war (or whatever it was that Scott and Derek were currently engaged in) would scare him away. He was pretty positive that Boyd didn’t have orders to shoot on sight.

When Stiles got there right after school, the ice rink was mostly deserted on this fine Tuesday afternoon, just like he had expected. Even in the dead of winter the ice rink wasn’t a highly frequented establishment. Maybe that was why Boyd worked here. The peace and quiet.

He borrowed some skates and hit the ice.

At first he felt a little wobbly—like Bambi stepping onto the frozen lake for the first time, because let’s be honest, skating once year did not render you graceful or even just steady.

It took about ten minutes until his body got with the program and then he was just zooming across the ice, his mind wandering to strange places. It was meditative, always had been. Here, he could let his guard down, could be sad and melancholy all he wanted. Everybody who knew about his excursion (Scott and his dad) would understand, and nobody else he knew ever came here. Except Boyd, but he hadn’t seen the guy yet. Maybe he wasn’t working today. Which was fine by Stiles. Less audience for this awkward skating adventure.

His mom used to love skating. Like, coming here all the time and going home to watch the Olympics loved it. When Stiles had been younger, she had tried teaching him how to skate, but he’d hated it. He had barely managed to walk steadily on solid ground and taking that stability away from him _had not been a good idea_. He would just always trip and flail and have no patience whatsoever to power through the initial flailiness of learning how to skate. So he hadn’t.

His mom had still come here, though, by herself or with friends and Stiles had spend those afternoons elsewhere (mostly at Scott’s). Until she couldn’t anymore.

So when her first posthumous birthday had rolled around, Stiles had marched to the ice rink on foot, after school, and had made the cashier let him in for free (Claudia Stilinski had been well known and loved by all the staff, seeing as she was one of the few regulars that they had).

They had let him borrow some skates and he had bravely stepped onto the hated ice. His immediate faceplant probably would have made it big on some sort of top ten epic fails list, but no one had laughed. Mostly because there had only been a couple of people on the ice and they might not have payed attention.

So Stiles had tried to get up, which he’d managed, only to slip and fall again. It had been a disaster. But he hadn’t been able to quit. It had been his mom’s birthday and she’d loved to skate so Stiles had needed to learn and honor her memory.

Ten minutes into his endeavor, he’d been covered in bruises and angry tears, gripping the handrail in sheer desperation and unable to figure out how to do this.

He had almost worked up the nerve to try again, when a boy had skidded to a halt in front of him.

“Do you need help?” the other kid had asked. “I can teach you.”

And Stiles had looked at the boy, awed, because he had just lost his faith in the world and here ‘d been someone who was nice enough to offer help when he needed it.

The other boy hadn’t asked why he needed to learn so badly, or why he’d been crying, he had just taken his hand in a strong grip and had carefully guided him away from the safety of the handrail. It had still been a disaster, Stiles had managed to make them both crash into the unforgiving ice multiple times, but every time the boy had just gotten back onto his feet, dragging Stiles with him, until finally, _finally_ , Stiles had been able to keep his balance and skate by himself.

At that moment Stiles had been so euphoric, so happy that he’d been able to do this, so sure his mom would have been proud of him had she been able to see this, that he’d impulsively hugged the other boy, causing them to topple over one last time.

“ _Thankyouthankyouthankyou_ ,” Stiles had babbled and had then promptly realized that he didn’t even know the other boy’s name. “My name is Stiles, what’s yours?”

The boy had looked at him for a couple of moments, long enough for Stiles to sit back awkwardly, before he’d finally grinned a little. “Boyd,” he’d said. And Stiles had just beamed at Boyd, totally happy in the knowledge that Boyd was the awesomest person ever and that he would never like anyone better than he liked Boyd (apart from Scott and his dad).

After that first meeting, Stiles had never seen Boyd again, not until first week of high school. And he was sure that Boyd didn’t even remember him, because he’d never said anything to him, never given him a reason to believe that Boyd recognized him. But Stiles had gone to the rink every year on his mom’s birthday, because she had loved skating and because Stiles needed to remember her like that.

So that was what he was doing, just aimlessly skating across the ice in lazy circles, remembering his mom’s laugh and trying to come to terms with the emptiness in his heart.

 


End file.
